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Friday, June 20, 2014

I used to not be able to stomach gory zombie films very
well. Despite being excited and thoroughly fascinated after watching zombie
films in my youth, I suffered from a loss of appetite for a while. Anytime I was trying to eat, my brain would be
like “you know what’s a good movie? Dawn of the Dead (1978),” and images from
the scene with zombies eating in the cellar would pop into my mind, and I would
be turned off to eating meat or anything savory for that matter. Sweets or
French fries were fine, but my mind just would not cease to relate the taste
and consistency of anything else, especially if it was slimy, to what it was
the zombies were chomping on. I was disgusted by zombie carnage but still
thought it was so cool.

The zombie film that grossed me out the most, which is
really saying something, was Lucio
Fulci’sZombie. As a kid, I used
to hate looking at the VHS cover with the iconic, rotting, worm eyed,
conquistador zombie (Ottaviano Dell'Acqua).
I wasn’t scared; I was repulsed. Being a growing boy on the verge of puberty, I
didn’t think it wise to be turned off to protein, either. And so, the tape just
sat on my movie shelf, after only being watched once, collecting dust, never to
be touched again for quite some time.

Needless to say, I eventually overcame
this sort of appetite-loss problem and no longer felt sick after watching
zombie films. I don’t know if it is enhanced mental discipline or
desensitization, but I can now eat pizza while watching movies like Zombie and Burial Ground without getting nauseous.

Anyone who may have read my
article for The Beyond during last
year’s gore-a-thon may recall that I wasn’t a fan of Zombie for a while. It took seeing The Beyond for me to re-evaluate what was my negative stand on Zombie.
I was guilty of hoping for another Dawn
of the Dead, ignorantly overlooking every one of the film’s strengths.

Sunday, June 15, 2014

The last film Lucio
Fulci ever worked on, The Wax Mask,
was supposed to have been the grand collaboration between Fulci and Dario Argento,
had it not been for Fulci’s tragic
death some few weeks before filming was to begin. The project came about after Argento had approached Fulci at a 1994 film festival in Rome
and suggested they work together on a new film. This was more of a sympathetic
gesture from Argento who had
intentions of reviving the spirits of an ailing Fulci in a wheelchair, who, at the time, had not worked
on a new film in years. The two were never the best of friends, as Argento always thought Fulci imitated his filmmaking style (the
separate camps weren’t only with the fan base it would seem).

Differences
aside, they mutually agreed upon recreating House of Wax with Fulci
directing. Along with Daniele Stroppa
(The House of Clocks), they wrote
the script for The Wax Mask, an
alternate take on the wax museum myth that doesn’t necessarily feel like a
remake of House of Wax (1953), even
if it is.

Wednesday, June 11, 2014

“Do you hear the clarion call? It’s calling out to one
and all.” –Falconer

The horror blogging clarion
call sounds again! That’s right; it’s almost time for Blood Sucking Geek’s second
annual Ultimate Gore-a-thon 2014 -- Another Splatterific Extravaganza! I hope a
fraction of you fantabulously awesome readers remember this event from last year, when nine sites came
together to embark on an ultimate gore-centric blog-a-thon! The event will run
from June 15th to the 21st. Including At the Mansion of Madness, there are, so far, twelve sites. The other blogs/sites taking part in the
upcoming Gore-a-thon are as follows:

Monday, June 9, 2014

My good friend, and fan of this site, Terence, has a cool
Eurocult Tumblr I just found out about yesterday, Chicks with Candles! Not only does it live up to its title, celebrating
the beloved gothic film trope of beautiful maidens with candelabra from
movies like Tragic Ceremony and Baba Yaga, the page also features posters,
cover art, deleted scenes, trivia, interesting but concise observations on
Eurocult films like Jess Franco’sLorna the Exorcist, and, most
importantly, a lot of attractive films I’ve never heard of but really want to
look at. I believe that me and Terence share an affinity for the use of lit candles as a mood enhancing aesthetic on film sets, and it's an elegant idea for a Tumblr page.

Check it out by clicking the delectable image of Rosalba Neri below, and be prepared to stay a while!

Thursday, June 5, 2014

Lightning, angry mobs, grave robbing, and a criminal’s
brain, like so many Frankenstein offshoots / spinoffs / parodies, Lady Frankenstein owes more to James Whale’s classic 1931 horror film
than Mary Shelley’s 1818 literary
masterpiece. Despite its many fitting references to, and retreading to an
extent, some of the plot points to its trendsetting predecessor, Lady Frankenstein is far from feeling
like a gory, colored remake, primarily thanks to the addition of Frankenstein’s
biological daughter, Tania (Rosalba Neri),
a little novelty with a lot of potential, like reimagining the classic 1931
movie with the doctor’s attractive but even more ambitious daughter written
into the story.

In a time when females were grossly underrepresented in science, Tania
Frankenstein shatters what must’ve been a prominent stereotype, enduring her
pursuit as a surgeon, even when faced with sexist instructors at the University;
as she puts it, “the professors have a lot of old fashioned ideas about a woman’s
place.” When she returns home from the University after becoming a licensed
surgeon, her father, Baron Frankenstein (Joseph
Cotten), expresses admiration for her accomplishments, and yet he and his
assistant, Dr. Charles Marshall (Paul Müller),
still treat her as if their work involving cadavers is too much for her
delicate senses to fathom. They seem to not want to involve her in their
gruesome work, but, to their surprise, she’s all for it. They attempt to make
her think they are working with animals, but she has been thinking along the same
lines as her father the entire time, being more interested in human transplants;
“I am my father’s daughter.” Not only does she thoroughly understand her
father’s work, she ends up refining it.